Alger
RUSSELL ALEXANDER, an American merchant, capitalist, and politician, born in Lafayette, O., Feb. 27, 1836. He served in the Civil War, rising from a captaincy to the rank of brevet Major-General of Volunteers. He was Governor of Michigan from 1885 to 1887; a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 1888; Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic (1889-1890); and became Secretary of War in President McKinley's Cabinet in 1897. Almost from the beginning of the Spanish-American War of 1898 he was the object of much public censure for shortcomings in his department, and finally resigned in 1899. He became U. S. Senator in 1902.
He died Jan. 4, 1907.